Why cuts might force Kew Gardens to shut

Successive Governments have constantly cut their commitment to Kew

It's one of Britain – and the world's – greatest scientific assets, and its work has never been more needed. But, as a parliamentary report out today makes clear Government cuts are putting Kew at risk.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concludes that the way ministers finance – or, rather, do not adequately fund – the Royal Botanical Gardens is “a recipe for failure”. Its chairman, Andrew Miller MP, adds: that it leaves Kew “with little ability to plan for the future and is undermining its capability to produce world-beating plant science.” And the report makes clear that, following big cuts in recent years, further ones would gravely endanger the institution.

Kew is quite simply, as Sir David Attenborough puts it, “the premier botanical gardens in the world, scientifically” with an “absolutely crucial role” in safeguarding the future. Originally opened in 1759, it has since built up the largest collection of living plants anywhere in the world, and has preserved collections comprising seven million vascular plants and over a million funghi. And the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew's Wakehurst Place, in Sussex, stores more than a billion seeds from wild plant species as an “insurance policy” against extinction.

As more and more of the natural world is devastated, and as climate change advances, all this will become increasingly important. Already, as the Telegraph reported last weekend, scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens are urgently working at finding a new coffee bean to take over from coffea arabica as global warming takes hold: the universally-used strain cannot withstand high temperatures.

But this is just the beginning of what may need to be done to feed the world as populations continue to grow, wild species disappear, and the planet heats up over the coming decades.

Yet successive Governments have constantly cut their commitment to Kew. In 1983 it provided 90 per cent of the funds needed to keep it going: by this year that had fallen to below 40 per cent. In 2010 an official investigation warned ministers that it would lose its world class status and its research would critically decline if these grants continued to shrink. Yet today's parliamentary report says they have been cut by over £8 million – about a quarter – over the last two years.

Kew has managed to increase its own earnings by 50 per cent over the last three years, but still has been unable to make up the shortfall, and so last year had to cut its 730 staff by over 100, including some 50 scientists. This caused a public revolt, as experts warned that it was facing the greatest crisis in its history – and eventually the Government buckled, stumping up an extra £1.5 million in September, followed by another £2.3 million in December, the day before the Select Committee heard oral evidence.

But it came too late to save the scientists made redundant, and offered nothing but stop gap relief from what more than 90 top botanists worldwide called – in a letter to the committee – “slash-and-burn” cuts. Prof Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, told the MPs that “we are now at the bones” and its director, Richard Deverell, warned that if the cuts continued, it would face some “extremely unpalatable decisions”, including closing to the public for part of the year, and ending the school programme that brings 100,000 children to Kew each year.

Kew's stunning Amazonian water lilies (Photo: ALAMY)

The committee's report concludes that the impact of the cuts was “exacerbated by how the Government manages the funding of the organisation, something we regard as a recipe for failure” and added: “Sudden changes in funding forced a more rapid change in scientific personnel than may otherwise have been necessary, causing a public outcry at the risk posed to the Gardens and its world class science functions.”

From badger culls to the foxhunting ban and plastic bag charges to climate change, Michael Wilkinson explores the key policies surrounding the environment from each of the political parties.

David Cameron's halcyon days as the 'hug a husky' wannabe Prime Minister who would preside over the greenest Government of all time seem like a distant, faded memory. Environmental policy was in fashion for a while, but what has happened since?